Dems for President in 2020?

2018 is already here and President Donald Trump’s first year ended with a bang.

The next presidential election will be here before we know it. 

With that being said, the Democratic party has a lot of work to do after the scandals during Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

It’s safe to say that to regain support and to find a candidate to challenge Trump won’t be easy.

According to a recent poll, five potential Democratic candidates were selected in a hypothetical matchup against Trump in a 2020 presidential election.

The potential candidates included former Vice President Joe Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. 

The Public Policy Polling survey resulted in all of these potential candidates beating Trump in 2020.  

But again, the Democratic party has struggled to regain the trust of its supporters. So the candidates entering the ring as nominees in 2020 could either make or break the Democratic party once and for all.  

Politico is predicting that in 2020, we will see more progressive Democratic candidates leveraging the anti-Trump movement.

“The clustering could make for a crowded lane of very progressive candidates in 2020, a space that Sanders had virtually to himself in 2020. And if the trend continues and extends to other topics and candidates, it could allow Trump to more easily attack his reelection opponents as puppets of the activist left,” writes Politico.

Almost all of these Dems have made anti-Trump statements.  

But do any of these possible candidates have what it takes to actually defeat the current president?

Sen. Kamala Harris is in her first year in the Senate and is popular with the black political elite, but her former role as attorney general may have a negative impact on a campaign.  

“Harris is mistrusted by the left mostly because of her roots as a prosecutor. The Black Lives Matter movement has put anyone with law enforcement history under close scrutiny, and California’s criminal justice system is notoriously brutal (though it has improved recently). While she is obviously no Jeff Sessions, Harris has sometimes displayed a rather Hillary Clinton-esque tendency to say the right thing but not follow through in a vigorous way,” writes The Week. 

But the fact that she is an African American woman may work in her favor.

“Due to artificial encumbrances, the nation was deprived of its first female president,” said Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga. “Perhaps that can be addressed in the 2020 election.”

Booker also isn’t likely to be a safe bet for the Dems either.  

“Booker is mistrusted because of his ties to Wall Street. Most notoriously, when President Obama attacked Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign for his long career as a bloodsucking financial parasite, buying up companies only to strip their assets and drive them into bankruptcy, Booker defended Bain Capital on Meet the Press. Why? Because New Jersey is just across the river from Manhattan and both parties are drowning in Wall Street cash,” writes The Week.

The Dems will have to tread lightly to regain the trust of the leftists, those who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election.

Sanders remains as a liberal favorite and he has added some strategic advisors to his payroll recently.

“As Sanders monitors his post-2016 political group Our Revolution and the Democratic National Committee’s reform efforts, he has also slightly expanded his tight circle of 2016 aides. Campaign manager Jeff Weaver has returned to the senator’s political payroll after helping build Our Revolution — which still hosts Sanders’ campaign email list and provides him a nationwide foothold,” writes Politico. “In contrast to the run-up to 2016, the group of counselors also now includes pollster Ben Tulchin, who joined that year’s campaign only after Sanders was convinced that hiring a pollster was worth it. A pair of senior advisers in Sanders’ Senate office have also joined. Rabin-Havt, a former Harry Reid aide, has been directing political outreach, and Matt Duss, former president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is working on foreign policy.”

Does this mean he is prepping for another presidential race?

As for Obama’s former Vice President Joe Biden, he isn’t opposed to the idea of running for president in 2020.  

“If I were offered the nomination by the Lord Almighty right now, today, I would say no because we’re not ready, the family’s not ready to do this. If in a year from now, if we’re ready and no one has moved in that I think can do it, then I may very well do it,” said Biden on ABC’s The View. 

Warren, on the other hand, seems more focused on her current role of fighting against Trump’s policies.  

“I’m doing my job every single day. I am not running for president, I’m doing my work,” said Warren.

It’s too early to tell which politician will ultimately become the Democratic frontrunner. None of these potentials have declared that they are planning to run.